The title says it all, I can't figure out which one's the best one on the market. No, I don't want any $1,000 crazy german or Yamaha one, I'm thinking more like SoundBlaster, Xonar, that type of stuff. I won't be recording or anything, but I AM going to be hooking up my computer soon to the HDTV with a 7.1 Surround sound sytem, and I'd like to be able to use that to it's full, absolute potential.

Sounds like the STX to me, I think I should be able to hook it into the receiver no problem. I'm a bit miffed though...it only has the R+L and SPDIF, wouldn't it lose some ground in the sense that it has no optical output?

@JakeHT:

Yeah, like I said same things come to mind, but which out of those is the best, I'm talking no-holds barred, best card out of the regular bunch. I love that smiley avatar, it always makes me feel...at peace.... >.>

Sorry, I'm major sound noob, I got no time for sound (normally) but now I'm so excited about using my comp on a big 52" and 7.1 surround sound!

I just ordered an ASUS Xonar Essence STX from NCIX and you're to blame Actually I've been sitting on the fence post for the last couple of days about buying this card, until I stumbled across your post last night and said what the heck.

+1 for the Claro. I have the non-plus and it sounds amazing, a huge difference from my old X-Fi XtremeMusic. It also lets you take 7.1 sound from a game and down-convert it for headphones, and it really sounds like its 7.1.

In that case, what's the BEST consumer-high-end sound card for gaming on a 7.1 system w/o headphones?

No, I never, ever use headphones, and I can't see myself buying a good pair in the forseeable future.

My previous recommendation that you quoted stands. I thoroughly enjoy mine, and my D2X...the HDAV Deluxe gets my vote due to the RCA-out and changable opamps on the daughtercard, as well as HD-audio functions. Works great in games, although if in XP, I'd be recommending the X-FI. Like I said, a card for every situation, specialized...

If using a receiver with HDMI-in and HD-audio decoding then the regular HDAV would get my vote.